


Watch and Wait

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Fray is some sort of dom, Guided Touch, Other, Soul Bond, no gods no beta no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:01:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22916653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There is more than one way to take communion.
Relationships: Fray Myste/Warrior of Light
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58
Collections: Anonymous





	Watch and Wait

The Forgotten Knight makes it all too easy to be in the shadows. Fray looms in them, larger than death, and steps in. Not into the light- it would be all too easy for both to remember that Fray alone is in full armor that way, with the reflection of guttering firelight on metal- but deeper in nonetheless. 

“Close the window,” Fray says with disinterest. His gaze pans over the room, cluttered and bare all at once. Their belongings strewn over the wide desk and at the foot of the bed, the walls bare and peeling. Their sword by the headboard, ready within reach. Fray’s gauntleted hand closes on the hilt, ready to draw the steel.

“It makes you feel good to have it close, doesn’t it?”

Fray knows. They haven’t spoken of it, not in words, but Fray knows. From the tension in their frame walking back into Eorzea- ingrate Eorzea, forgetful Eorzea- and then into the Forgotten Knight. Not Fortemps Manor, warm as it is, with more tasks and more ill-fitting memories. People that should be there but aren’t. Or, as Fray imagines he is, people that would be there but shouldn’t be.

As imagined, the Warrior nods their stoic nod. Stiff, shoulders loosening like cut strings as they turn to regard him. One of their hands is pressed flat over their journal, the other hanging in a fist down from a relaxed arm. Fray knows some of the letters writ there, put in by him while they slept through the chocobo carriage ride back to the Shroud. If it is unusual for them to fall asleep after so small an exertion- no more than peistes, than justice being met by their own hands and withheld from their blade by friends- Fray knows why.

He is here, after all, as they are. 

“Tiring visit, wasn’t it?”

He has to ask. He has to start with something, make sure they want him here at the barest. He may have been invited along- his suggestion for the communion one borne absolutely out of convenience for them- but this is for him. Only for him, as nothing else this day has been. Not Sidurgu’s back, where the Warrior couldn’t see it but Fray could. Not the mulled wine bought and wasted, left whole, to pass the time between his Warrior’s arrival to the city and their rejoining. Not the words in their journal, in their skull, between breaths and beats of the heart-

They nod. They smile, wry and with the edge of evening chill. Meaningless words pass their lips-  _ sit, please sit, did you eat? _ Always so caring, now that they have someone to care for. Nevermind the sword, they’ve not the mind for it now. Not unless it’s urgent, and they look to Fray. They don’t plead- they never have, or never about this- but Fray knows their exhaustion in his own aether. Their own aether. It is all the same, rankling as it is, blessing that it is.

“Nothing urgent. Fibrillont ran out of rooms”- he never has, but he also is in the habit of leasing them out cheap to groups that share- “and he sent me here” -he never saw Fray. 

Odd to think that only the Warrior can see him, can hear feel think him, and yet communion is still a fluke. Fray wants to blame the Thanalan sun. They had been unexpectedly thorough in their replica, and the heat of baking metal and all the layers of Ishgardian clothing had been a nuisance even without a living body to feel it. Fray wants to blame getting whisked away to mete out justice for an imprisonment, for oh so many deaths, and then being stalled. A hand over their hands on the blade, and the former Flames general’s stern stare.

He’s been too caught up in thoughts. The exhaustion must be getting to him. The Warrior laughs before he can sink in deep again in emotions and reasons not altogether his, and the sound sparks easy, giddy to hear.  _ I’m glad you got mine, then _ , and the Warrior pushes themselves out of their seat. Too accomodating with their own privacy, but Fray is glad for it for once.

“Were you doing anything?” receives a  _ no _ as an answer; “do you want to do anything?” receives a murmur. Their eyes going from him, slumped on their bed with his armor still fully worn, to the sword, back to him.  _ Journaling _ escapes their mouth with the normalcy it is due;  _ thinking _ slips more like a stray thought, or something untowards.

“Thinking of…?”

_ You _ , they say. Eyes on only him, on his through what his helmet lets them see. Fray thrills. Their aether- his aether- doesn’t fully, but for now it’s secondary.

“What about me?”

_ I didn’t expect you to come,  _ foolish thought that it is, comes first.  _ I thought we’d… _

This, Fray thinks, is more words than he has gotten from them in the entire journey. Not that he hasn’t heard more; just that this is the most that he has gotten towards him, of all they’ve said. And they pause, as if realizing that they have gone far above their limits of things that they would admit to themselves, sometime.

_ I thought we’d have more success, _ they settle on. _ Something would’ve happened. _

“Not your fault,” even though it is, somewhat, but Fray wants to be as charitable as they are. Just for now. Now that they’re thinking of him, instead of Thanalan or the guests of Fortemps manor. “You couldn’t do all you wanted,” and oh, what it would be.

_ We would be short allies _ , they say. Not without some bitterness.  _ I could be in jail. _

“Not worse?”

_ I don’t think you’d have allowed worse, _ and it’s Fray’s turn to laugh. Huff with some merriment. As much as his armor allows without removing it, without showing what is beneath, without. There are many things Fray is taming here. 

“I wouldn’t have. What did you want to do?”

He stands between them and their sword. No killing, as much as Fray is sure… no, he’s sure they don’t want to. He’s the one with a grudge. But not leaving this room sounds like enough for them, and they seem too wakeful to dismiss his company. It is, he supposes, an advantage of this arrangement. He never did like sleeping, not without more eyes on his back, not in the eternal chill.

Fray waits. They wait, though for what Fray doesn’t know.  _ It’s not something we could do here anyhow.  _

“Why not?”

_ Doesn’t communion need blood? _

That isn’t what Fray expected to hear. The hitched breath isn’t entirely his own, cannot be. Neither is the trepidation. Gods, look at them, closed off even to themselves. To him, who they raised so gently from the battering cold of death, of the Brume.

He’s gentle, for once.

“No, not really. It just needs a way to connect to the other person. To be vulnerable with another.”

_ And you prefer battle? _

“It was how my mentor taught me,” going through drills just outside the city because swords- large ones that couldn’t be concealed- reeked of authority and power no Brume kid should have, running from guards and cutting down foes that threatened his master’s sides, “But there could be other ways.”

_ Such as… ? _

Fray shrugs at them. They look at them with… it’s not exhaustion, but it’s tired. As if Fray was one to play coy, as if Fray wasn’t as eager as they were for this. For the embrace of the abyss, for having a heart beating in his chest and a voice ringing in his ears. Warmth from the connection and chill from fighting against simply giving in, sinking in, returning to death in someone else’s steady pulse.

“What do you do when you want to open up?”

They pause. Shrug at him, color high on their face.  _ Many things, _ they demur, and then to give themselves away they start peeling off armor. Pauldrons, pauldroncoat, sitting on the bed to start unhooking their sabatons and then viciously kicking off the chainmail pants. Fray sits between them and their sword; Fray watches them with dull amusement. It’s not attraction, per se. They don’t know Fray’s face. Just his voice, just the gloom rumbling beneath like solace and like passion. Just the way he swings a sword with abandon and with something that could be charitably called grace.

And the conjury. Can’t forget it, not if he’s allowed to keep it as he is, not after all he went through to have it in the first place. He wanted to piece people together once, so he still will.

_ Some more for fun, or to let my guard down for a night. _

“Would you want me to, then?”

He wants to laugh. He wants to choke on a breath to ask that, and he settles on watching them choke on theirs. He’s not the first to ask so bluntly, but he’s the first to do so while hiding the broad smile, the desire. Maybe it’s because it’s not their body in particular that Fray is after, but it is too much to admit even for him.

They clear their throat. Look away. Look towards him out of the corner of their eyes and meet only with yellow glowing out from black.  _ Do you want to? _

“It isn’t just communion then,” because Fray hasn’t done it this way before, though he has wanted it. With them, with Sidurgu, mainly with them. “You have to agree to both.”

They breathe, and Fray feels it fill his own lungs. Anticipation, dread, lightness that threatens to lift him off the bed even as their body and their aether woven as metal keeps him weighted down. A pause. A held breath to be rushed out as  _ yes, _ and a stilted hum before they think to ask  _ so what do we do? _

“You lie down” passes his lips as a rumble. A clatter of metal as he shifts so they have the length of the bed for themselves. “Get comfortable.”

_ In armor? _ They ask with wide eyes and a chill as they reckon how much it will bruise, how will it feel to be taken by someone sheathed in cold metal, how tender the skin to cover with armor after, and Fray shudders. Not where it can show, of course, but he does nonetheless and feels them echo that weak feeling of his with their own. 

“Get comfortable or get talkative, pick one,” he says with undue roughness and long overdue fondness. “I won’t give you anything you can’t hide, or do anything you don’t want me to do.”

He gets communion as it is. He gets to be heard, to be their one and only for the scant heartbeats it lasts. They nod, and recline. Elbows first, then shoulders once they make sure they won’t clip Fray’s mass where he sits, half-turned to keep them in his sights. His eyes are lidded, dimmer gold eager to warm, and his helm hides much from them. With his arms crossed, he seems far too distant, is too distant, even if he wasn’t to remain untouching.

_ What now? _

“Clothes off. Be more careful than with your armor,” he says, tearing his eyes away. The pants are kicked off in the middle of the room, and one of the boots has tipped over next to the side of the bed and its still upright companion. The gloves are folded on the desk next to the journal, and the coat in some dim wherever. “But don’t get off the bed.”

His words stop them as they sit up again.

“Just hand them to me. I won’t do anything untowards with them.”

_ You’re not a sylph, _ they huff, and that seems to be enough agreement. Their belt goes first, hands finding the buckle blindly and undoing it without issue. Bracing themselves more on their backs and lower legs, they arch their hips off the bed to be able to more easily unwrap the length of leather from around their body and then simply toss it away, buckle first, in the general direction of where their chainmail pants lie.

Fray tsks, reaches out to grab a wrist. They stop when they feel the cold metal gauntlets- still cold as the grave, even if they’re inside the inn room where there’s a weak fire and only a very tiny draft- and the soft bite of the points at his fingertips. Fray is pleased to notice they look sheepish, eyes slightly too wide.

_ Sorry. _

“It’s fine. But I need you to follow my lead if we are to commune”, and Fray bites back an if they are to be together, if they are to actually listen to themselves-as-himself. If they are going to want him. Instead, he grips a little tighter, enough to remind them that he is cold and present, and lets their wrist go. They hold it in the air for a moment longer, as if relishing the chill or simply letting their mind catch up, and then they move again. Hands untucking their shirt from their pants, from the front first for ease. Then back arched to pull out the tail of it, and Fray only merely, barely accelerates the breath that passes his lips. It’s a show for him, after all, and he should be entranced. But he says nothing, lets them continue as they trace their hands back to their sides and ruck up the fabric. Their stomach is revealed, their ribs, skin taut over toned muscle and brushed by scars. Light bruising that Fray could, and he feels them know he could, they want him to, mark and color again. 

They color slightly, just as slight as the sound was, and pull the shirt off.

It tangles at their head somewhat, their hips and waist being arched off their bed meaning their head isn’t. So they lower themselves, fumble a bit to remove it fully, and then ball it up loosely in both hands. Fray says nothing, does nothing, but they stop themselves before the shirt is thrown away.

Their head rolls over to the side so they see Fray, and then, with a delay, hand him the balled up shirt.

“Good,” he says, and his smile is hidden by the helm but the crinkles of his eyes aren’t, gold dimming into narrower slits. “Pants off.”

He busies himself folding the shirt. Not looking at them, not overtly, even if off the edge of his sight he sees them arch up again, bending one leg at the knee for ease, to shimmy off the pants at the hips and then push off the fabric. They don’t stop looking at him, something wanting in their eyes, and when Fray does turn at his own leisure to watch them free themselves of their other pants leg they color. So unlike them, to show their expression; he supposes that that is as much to blame as his mortuary garb for him not to have much of a face to show his with. He has to be dramatic then; the motion to rake his eyes over their body starts from his shoulders, and the pleased rumble is one that catches on his chest. It might start in theirs; Fray is, for once, indifferent to which. It is pleased, and it is because of him; that is enough for him, for now.

Fray doesn’t look at their legs as they fold and unfold to reach the garment, pull it finally off, and hand it to him. The dark knight’s crystal lies on their flattened chest, over the binder, so close and so far from the heart on its chain. He blindly takes the pants, still focused on their body, and lets out a thoughtful hum as he folds them. Drapes the pants and folded shirt over the headboard, as neat as he was ever taught to be.

The silence is unnerving when it’s from him, not them. Fray wants them to notice this, the way their heart beats slightly too close to the center of their consciousness, the fidget of their hands.

“Lovely.”

_ Fray? _

“Hm?”

_ … should I remove these? _

“Can you breathe well in them?”

_ Well enough to fight,  _ they say with a huff, with their hands trailing up their hips to their ribs. Just below the band of the binding top. Fray hums again, eyes shifting down slow as molasses to their hands. 

“Do that again,” he says. “Slower, pressing down with more weight. I want you to feel that.”

Fray speaks, and shifts. He’s facing them fully know, even if he had to do a half turn for it, and he can lean so one of his hands rests almost on their shoulder, upon the bed. They’re warm enough for him to feel it, even through the armor, as he is sure that they feel the grave cold of him. Pointed gloves rest so close to skin, almost touching, and the rest of Fray leans over them. Corners them in.

Their hand slides down with some speed, just above the band of their bottoms, then drags up. They stop again, where they were before, and look at Fray curiously. 

“Again. But go higher afterwards. I want to see you enjoy yourself,” and Fray feels their trepidation in his soul, chilled notes behind his tongue, at the tips of his fingers. He wants to touch almost not for his own enjoyment- dulled as it would be in his armor- but also to banish that flustered look from their eyes. He has one hand free, and he moves it to card through their hair. Fray grins to himself as they startle, their hands pausing briefly just past their navel at the contact, then daring upwards again. Over the binder, pressing down slightly.

“So shy with yourself?”

_ It’s different when watched… _

Fray runs his gauntlets through their hair again. The strands tangle, pull- some of it must be painful, but Fray doesn’t know and they don’t do more than repeat their own caress once more- and he smiles. 

“Close your eyes then,” and Fray bites back the ‘think only of me’ he wants to say. “Give me one of your hands.”

They comply fast. That’s a simpler request than wanting to have them aware of their own body’s sensations, one that’s actively pleasing Fray, and he wishes that they had ease being selfish. Even if it is when watched. His gauntlet rubs roughly over the back of their hand before he guides it to just over their collarbones, palm over the soulstone. A mere thought, and aether pools beneath their joined hands. Fray doesn’t need to see the deep, blood-red glow cutting into their skin and beating like a heart, but it is pleasing regardless. More so when they anticipate his next command and he gets to stall them with a small ‘tsk’.

“Go lower this time, just as before. Fingers along the inside of your thighs, trailing just along the edge of the cloth.” 

His voice turns impish without effort, his hand giving their own a squeeze where it holds it over the soul crystal. They jerk to reach it when he lets go, the deep red forgotten as it beats over, in their chest. “And don’t go under just yet. I am a patient man,” for now, only for now, “and wish to take you at my pleasure.”

Their brow furrows, their breath sighs, and they comply. Gods, they comply. Fray lets his gaze slip down their face and neck, raking down their body to where their hand dips between slightly more spread legs. “Press a bit harder when you’re almost to your hip.” As if to bruise, to mark, goes unsaid, but Fray feels it ripple as a thought. As a slightly faster heartbeat, resounding in the soul stone.

Fray leaves their hands to wander on their own. He feels eyes upon him again, more than on their task- the Warrior of Light is familiar enough with their body, after all- and they wait. They repeat the motion on their own, since Fray has made no move to stop them, and he delights in the slightly faster breaths. 

“Hand still only at the edge of the fabric? Starting to try and catch me unawares, daring a brief touch under, somewhere more sensitive?”

They look away. He guessed right. Fray’s grin goes unseen, but not his shrug.

“Go for it then. But properly, no sneaking about. I want you to slip your hand into your underwear and stroke at yourself. Stoke that flame, as much as you can without moving your hips or lowering your other hand.”

That last gets him a huff, a bewildered look.

“I wasn’t going to make it so easy, for shame. The other just over your collarbone. There’s so much of you to touch, to drive to sensation.”

_ How fast? _

Fast as their heartbeat, he could say, and end it early. Too slow and he’ll lose them. Fray settles after some thought, after he watches their hand stutter as it keeps the motions paused. The one nearer to the soulstone seems to not know whether to brush over their own chest, drive it to heaving, or if the better choice is to seize their heartbeat in their fist and dive deep.

“Until you beg me to let you go on, go slow. I’m taking my pleasure from you too,” he’s driving them together, “and I’d want all of it. All of those little shifts you make, all of that voice you keep hidden-”

_ Fray. _

“What?”

_ May I? _

Their breath is fast, but not incoherently so. Fray looks at them, looks at them blush and think his name over and over, always about to leave their lips. Their hand clutching the soulstone, thumb rubbing the underside of it in tight circles that Fray can feel along the edge of his nerves. And the other hand frotting at themselves, underpants pushed aside, and a faint dampness on their fingertips. Hard at work then, and struggling not to put their hips into it, chase their own motions. They don’t always succeed, hips arching off the bed. Too charming a sight for Fray to mind.

_ Fray, please- _

“Go on then” passes his lips as a hiss. As aether, sinking in low from where he grips their shoulder and rests a hand just besides their neck. The racing pulse is his-

-theirs-

-the crackling fire is so distant, is inside of their veins. Their voice is so distant, a muffled gasp, Fray’s own growl as he tries to find that little bit of them that’s his. Their hands must find their mark too, an actual cry threading through Fray’s hearing, and he chases it, presses in with his aether where they beg for it. Something gives, something has Fray feeling searing cold again like the grave, their hands ember-warm against his skin. Not armor, skin, as their lungs gasp for air and their- his- hips arch off the bed with the sound of metal.

“Listen to my voice,” but he doesn’t have one, “listen to my heartbeat.”

They clench their fist hard around the soulcrystal, only dimly aware of the order. Too lost in the movement of it, the feeling of it, Fray’s closeness even if it’s not in the flesh. He hears his name again, through water and through gasps, the abyss dragging him deeper.

They don’t fall.

“Listen to me,” he pleads, he feels as chill down his chest that no amount of drawing back into themselves can ward away. No amount of stoking the flames of their own skin, and letting the crystal go to grasp at his hand next to their neck gets them a snarl of a sigh. 

The room briefly blurs back into focus. One of their legs bent for ease of touch, their hair tangled. Fray moved his hand too, to bury in their hair like he likes, like they like. Their breath ragged, heaving, and hips off the bed. He- they- move the hand back towards the neck, clasped over the soulstone, and the abyss rages back in.

Thanalan’s sun. The scent of rust. Watching him- themselves- reach out to barely touch each other even as now they work themselves to a frenzy. The cold of the Brume, the vertigo from being pulled away from that last edge. Not the blinding light of the Mothercrystal but all-consuming all the same. Just that warm blue, ice receding at the edges-

_ Listen to me, _ and it’s Fray’s own ragged voice in another’s throat. Please, “please-”

“Let go.”

They do in pieces. A breath that Fray struggles to catch, lets slip through his fingers as it clears their throat to ruffle the side of his helm. Their hands stuttering in their frenzy then slowing down, the sensation too much, too sharp. A boneless flop upon the bed.

They finish by readjusting their underwear, stained as it now is, and scrunching their nose.

_ Fray?  _ Their voice is only theirs again, Fray’s own voice no longer reverberating in their throat, in their chest. They still feel it, tender as pricked flesh, heavy as armor over sweat-slick skin.

“Yes?”

_ Did we…? _

“Perhaps-” not enough, nowhere near enough, but yes. “Close to it.”

Their nose scrunches.  _ I thought we succeeded.  _ Ever dutiful. Determined. Devoted, if Fray wishes it was for once bound to stay where it is.

“In a way.”

Fray gives them as much of a tired smile as he can manage to convey. All-concealing helm, but something in him still reaching out for the rest of their aether. They succeeded, for a night.

“Rest now. Communion isn’t to be taken lightly.”

_ Will you be here? _

Always. Not in a way they understand yet, but always. “I’ll go get you something to drink-”

_ My pack. Not Gibrillont. _

“I’m not getting you that watered piss.” Fray scoffs, though it’s good to know. He was about to do just that, regardless of the quality. “But I’ll not be on the bed.”

They laugh, then stretch out. Not much, just enough to find comfort again.  _ Suit yourself, _ they say, and start to drift off, roused only to take a gulp of a waterskin before tugging on the covers over themselves. Fray waits until they no longer watch him, wait for him to disrobe, before fading again into the shadows of the room.


End file.
